So you’ve been hearing about this macro tracking, and it sounds great… but you’re wondering “where’s the freedom with it”? You’re seeing people talk about planning every single day. Every single meal. Every single SNACK. Like where is the room for tequila with a side of chips and salsa?!
Which is why in this blog, I want to talk with you about the importance of listening to your body and remembering that macro tracking is a TOOL, not something to be controlled by.
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As a long-time coach and macro-tracker myself, something I see a lot in my clients (and that I used to do myself!) is feeling pressure to ALWAYS have to finish your plate. When it’s snack time you snack. When it’s lunch time you eat. You get so used to planning, logging, and eating that you just go into robot mode. And while this can be helpful at the beginning of a weightloss journey, there’s also a BIG issue with it:
You can completely forget to ever even LISTEN to your body and you become controlled by macro tracking.
You stop paying attention to when your body is telling you that you’re hungry, or when it’s saying it isn’t hungry anymore. You’re just eating when you’re “supposed” to eat… Because you logged it and pre-planned it and you’re afraid that if you don’t follow it to a tee, your whole schedule goes out the window.. So you just eat (or don’t eat) without a second thought. You’re slamming snacks when you’re busy or starving yourself until the next scheduled eating time. You’re never actually listening to your body and what it needs.
Macro tracking can make you so afraid of vearing from what you’ve planned to the point that you’re no longer enjoying the freedoms macro tracking can give you. Instead you’re being controlled by it! When your schedule gets busy, or your family wants to go out for pizza, suddenly your entire day is off. And what do you do next? You think since your day isn’t going to be PERFECT, you might as well forgo the entire plan. And inevitably the next step is to go into full on fuck it mode (been there). You eat anything and everything, without any kind of balance or moderation.
When macro tracking is controlling your life, you forget how to eat like a normal person.
But macro tracking is meant to be a TOOL for your unique needs. It’s supposed to give you the freedom and flexibility to meet your weight loss goals and have a real LIFE. So let me share a personal example…
You probably know by now that I’m a HUGE breakfast and dessert person, but I’m not a big lunch person. Lunch is just a filler for me. It gets me through the day but I hardly ever eat a large lunch (I actually feel way more sluggish when I do). To be honest, if I never had a sandwich again I really wouldn’t care… but when it comes to breakfast I want ALL of it.
But when I first started macro tracking I spent far too long trying to do what I saw other fitspo, influencer, and skinny people doing – eating light breakfasts and waiting foreverrrr for another light snack, when in reality I ended up being hangry and tired all day. Surprise, surprise – it was NOT working for me. So I finally asked myself, “alright, what DOES work for me?” I started listening to my body and because of this, I now choose to frontload a lot of my calories earlier in the day, eat a smaller lunch, and then eat a bigger dinner and something before bed. I know I’m generally hungriest in the morning, and I know I sleep best when I eat something before I go to sleep. I’ve learned to LISTEN to my body and eating is way less stressful.
Finding Freedom
When you start paying attention to what your body is telling you and apply macro tracking as a tool to complement that, there is so much more freedom. The more you use macro tracking for your specific needs, the more you’ll be empowered when you’re not tracking to actually listen to your body, rather than starving yourself or going into full on fuck-it mode.
Your body tells you what it needs, and it knows you better than any app or macro tracking plan. So while it’s great to have a plan, it’s even better to see that plan as more of a guidebook, to be able to listen to your body’s needs, and to use macro tracking as an empowering tool.
Want to learn more about macros? Check out this blog here.
Then be sure to follow up with my full story around macro tracking and how I used it to lose over 60 pounds in this blog here!
